Starborn, written by Chris Roberson with art by Khary Randolph, is the story of a head-in-the-clouds dreamer who pursues a career in writing while working a crappy dead-end job; basically the bulk of the comic reading audience. He is the creator, or rather he thought he was the creator, of a fictional place called the “The Human Civilization”, and writes a novel about it only to find that another writer way before his time had already written the same story. At the climax of this issue, the main character, Benjamin Warner, discovers that the world in his mind is real, and out to get him.

Starborn straddles the lines between a modern hero story and grand space adventure. It includes classic sci-fi elements, like Flash Gordon-esque grandiose dialogue and cultishly named alien societies, but adds a fresh and modern twist to it. While the idea of a writer whose works becomes more than just fiction isn’t a new idea, the main character, Benjamin Warner, has a strong infectious energy that transfers through to the reader, and carries us well through this opening issue. We see a lot of exposition by Ben Warner this issue, which is a bit unfortunate because as relatable as he is, he’s not a very likable character. The bulk of the book is devoted to getting the reader acquainted with his character rather than telling his story, so we spend a lot of time with his personal thoughts and only see the world from his perspective. This should help enhance the reader’s experience, though, as all signs point to the story being an “ordinary guy finds himself in an extraordinary situation” kind of story. Even though the issue felt relatively uneventful, Roberson has done a great job of creating a connection between Ben Warner and the reader, which sets issue two up for non-stop action.

Anyone who has followed Khary Randolph’s work for any length of time knows that he is incredible at drawing dynamic characters and action scenes. His art complements Warner’s high energy and daydreaming personality very well, and his eye-popping pages in the latter part of the book seem to give us just a small taste of the insanity that’s yet to come.

If you take a look at Randolph’s collected sketchbooks, you’ll see that he’s known for drawing beautiful women and muscular athletes; neither really describes the main character. The story in this introductory issue didn’t really give him a chance to shine, but the world of “The Human Civilization” definitely seems like it will offer that opportunity moving forward.

Starborn #1 starts slow but quickly picks up speed. Its fantastical cross-genre nature and strong artistic direction make it a contender to be one of most exciting books on the market today.